Century Village Woos Younger Residents

HOME FRONT

January 15, 1995|Joe Kollin

Not all retirees want to keep younger people out of their communities.

Kitty Thibault recently assumed the presidency of her 200-unit condo association at Century Village in Pembroke Pines. She learned that the management company wasn't allowing rentals or sales to anyone under age 55. She promptly did something about it.

"As long as we're allowed to have 20 percent of our people 55 and under, that's what we want," says Thibault, 61. The Federal Fair Housing Act lets an association consider itself a community for older persons if at least 80 percent of the units are occupied by someone over 55, if the community has significant facilities for older persons and if the association can prove it was designed for older persons, such as including that fact in its documents.

It is the 80 percent requirement that Thibault is talking about.

"We weren't renting or selling to anyone under 55 for fear of losing our senior status," she says. "But the act says 80 percent must be over 55 and that means 20 percent can be under 55. Keeping out everyone 55 or under isn't what the act is all about, so people under 55 are what we want to attract."

Thibault is president of the Kingsley association at Century Village and is a Pembroke Pines city commissioner.

Her neighbors, she says, like the idea of having people in their 20s to 50s around because they add life and excitement to the community. Besides, she says, going to funerals gets boring. Before you call Home Front or a government agency for a list of communities that ban everyone under 55, be warned that there is no such list.

Any association can call itself an over-55 community if it meets the three conditions.

Even if the government decides the community is obeying the law, that decision is good only the day of the investigation because the day after it may not meet the 80 percent requirement.